When Kotaro Kawaii (!) was a little kid, he learned from his favorite show to make slime by mixing borax solution with laundry starch. The newly created slime, though, fell over his drawing of a penguin, and became a sentient, talking, shape-shifting being. A starry-eyed Kotaro shouted “Kawaii!” and named the slime “Puniru.” He would use the penguin-looking creature as a teddy bear by bedtime, and they were the best of friends. But nowadays, Kotaro is an insecure middle schooler with a crush on his senpai Kirara, who he deems “practically a saint.” And acting on his feelings is increasingly difficult, because Puniru would rather resemble a girl his age than an aquatic flightless bird from the South Pole, and she sneaks into his bed and follows him to school leaking through the pipes, fighting for his attention. Her gluttony for praise for her cuteness has grown so much that she wants to create a Disneyworld-style theme park about herself. Kotaro is embarrassed to no end by her antics and wants nothing to do with her. That is, until the flirtatious Yasuke makes a move on Kirara. Perhaps Puniru could help him devise a trap for Yasuke?

Okay, let me be straight: I don’t find cuteness all that interesting, so I may not be the target audience for a show like this. That said, I thought Puniru was utterly horrifying. She stalks Kotaro at school and home, follows him through the pipes, barges into his friends while impersonating popular idols, and dissolves into ooze. She’s like a concept R. L. Stine of Goosebumps fame would have come up with, a living reminder of the embarrassing kiddie stuff you did when you were little, now following you around. Except Stine always kept things PG, and this one, well, pushes it. Puniru attempts to seduce Yasuke in a classroom. Kotaro’s friends see perverse possibilities in her shape-shifting. I found the breast humor jarring, especially with everyone looking this childlike. Sure, it’s all played for laughs, there are signs that Puniru genuinely likes Kotaro and that Kirara is not that great, and I can see that the lesson is supposed to be about preserving your childhood bonds even when they embarrass you. But Puniru is so pushy that at this rate, it might become a broken Aesop, a story at odds with itself. If you like her antics and don’t mind the humor, perhaps this is for you. As for me, if I see Puniru again, it will be in my nightmares.

Puniru is a Kawaii Slime can be streamed on Crunchyroll.